Deadly fire destroys seniors’ home in L’Isle-Verte

Many of the residents had limited mobility and were confined to wheelchairs and walkers

Firefighterwalks past hose pouring water on the smouldering remains of a seniors residence in L'Isle-Verte, Qc. Thursday January 23, 2014.

Photograph by: John Mahoney
, The Gazette

L'ISLE-VERTE — The painstaking job Friday of finding the bodies of 30 people or more who died when fire, whipped by fierce winds, roared through the Résidence du Havre in this Lower St. Lawrence village is being complicated by thick ice and the collapse of the three-storey building.

Eyewitness Christian Morin, who lives next to the seniors' residence, said the fire broke out at about 12:30 a.m. and local firefighters, assisted by firefighters from five neighbouring communities, responded quickly.

"They couldn't do anything with the strength of the wind," Morin said, adding that the focus was on saving surrounding buildings.

Police confirmed eight people, found at the scene of the fire, died. About 20 survived, 11 of whom are in hospital, and about 30 are missing.

Geneviève Guilbeault, of Quebec's Coroner's office, said three coroners, Renée Roussel, Martin Clavet and Andrée Kronstrom, have been named and said identification of the dead would be done in the usual ways: "visual, DNA, dental records."

Lt. Guy Lapointe, of the Sûreté du Québec provincial police force, said the residence had 52 units and police have not determined how many people were there.

"We have to ascertain who was physically there at the time of the blaze, who was out visiting relatives (or) at the hospital," he said. "Were people there visiting? We can't just go with who lives there to determine who's missing."

"We want to be 100-per-cent sure."

Yvan Charron, chief of the L'Isle-Verte volunteer fire department, said the ice is "three or four inches to one foot thick" in places.

The SQ has taken control of the scene, setting up a Red Zone on the site of the fire and a Yellow Zone in the vicinity.

Powerful lighting equipment was installed at the site Thursday night, but plans to begin the search for bodies and evidence to piece together what happened was put off until daylight.

Jean Bélanger, head of civil security for the region, explained that in this village of 1,200, everyone knows some of the victims and that has had an impact on the rescue effort.

"People know one another," he said.

Emergency workers from neighbouring Trois-Pistoles, Rivière-du-Loup and Rimouski have volunteered to relieve locals and have expanded the pool of rescue workers.

But Arctic temperatures, which felt like -35 with the wind chill on Thursday, are complicating efforts.

"It is so cold people can't search for one or two hours," Bélanger said. "They will maybe work for half an hour and then will be relieved so they can rest."

Lapointe said he understands people want to know how many residents are confirmed dead, but "for us right now what dictates our agenda is really to do things right."

"You have to understand that because the building has collapsed, all the water has frozen."

"When you want to go in and maybe retrieve the (victims), you want to do it very delicately because you don't want to damage the scene breaking the ice," he said. "Obviously you want to do it respectfully for the potential victims."

Lapointe would not speculate on what caused the fire but said the investigation by the SQ, assisted by the Quebec Coroner's office, will look into all possible causes, including a possible electrical problem and the effectiveness of sprinklers.

Police will talk to witnesses and experts.

"But you have to understand right now the investigation is barely beginning," Lapointe said.

First, police must recover victims' remains and sift through the scene for clues about what caused the fire.

"I'm not going to go into the specifics. Needless to say, that we do it very delicately.

"We have a lot of equipment that's been deployed. The level of difficulty is very high, I won't lie to you, given past experience.

"We have very competent people on the scene right now — the very best — to be able to start finding the missing people."

The building also housed a pharmacy and a CLSC community clinic. Health and social services official Daniel Lévesque said the pharmacy has been relocated and the health service is looking for a new site for the CLSC.

Lévesque also said six psychologists and social workers have been deployed to L'Isle-Verte to offer counselling to relatives and rescue workers.

Two SQ officers were treated in hospital for smoke inhalation and a third was treated for a back injury.

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